Contents -- Acknowledgments -- SECTION ONE: CHALLENGES TO THE FUTURE OF SOAPS -- Introduction: The Crisis of Daytime Drama and What It Means for the Future of Television -- Perspective: Scholars Barbara Irwin and Mary Cassata on the State of U.S. Soap Operas -- Perspective: Historian William J. Reynolds on Memories of The Edge of Night -- Perspective: Writer Patrick Mulcahey on Changes in Soap Opera Writing Contracts -- Perspective: Actor Tristan Rogers on Changes in Soaps' Industry, Audiences, and Texts -- Daytime Budget Cuts -- Agnes Nixon and Soap Opera "Chemistry Tests" -- Giving Soaps a Good Scrub: ABC's Ugly Betty and the Ethnicity of Television Formats -- The Way We Were: The Institutional Logics of Professionals and Fans in the Soap Opera Industry -- SECTION TWO: CAPITALIZING ON HISTORY -- Perspective: Scholar Horace Newcomb on the Pleasures and Influence of Soaps -- Perspective: Scholar Robert C. Allen on Studying Soap Operas -- Growing Old Together: Following As the World Turns' Tom Hughes through the Years -- Perspective: Writer Kay Alden on What Makes Soaps Unique -- Perspective: Scholar Nancy Baym on Soaps after the O. J. Simpson Trial -- Of Soap Operas, Space Operas, and Television's Rocky Romance with the Feminine Form -- The Ironic and Convoluted Relationship between Daytime and Primetime Soap Operas -- Perspective: Scholar Louise Spence on Comparing the Soap Opera to Other Forms -- Perspective: Scholar Jason Mittell on the Ties between Daytime and Primetime Serials -- Preserving Soap History: What Will It Mean for the Future of Soaps? -- Did the 2007 Writers Strike Save Daytime's Highest-Rated Drama? -- SECTION THREE: EXPERIMENTING WITH PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION -- "The Rhetoric of the Camera in Television Soap Opera" Revisited: The Case of General Hospital -- It's Not All Talk: Editing and Storytelling in As the World Turns.

Guiding Light: Relevance and Renewal in a Changing Genre -- The Evolution of the Production Process of Soap Operas Today -- From Daytime to Night Shift: Examining the ABC Daytime/SOAPnet Primetime Spin-off Experiment -- "What the hell does TIIC mean?" Online Content and the Struggle to Save the Soaps -- The Evolution of the Fan Video and the Influence of YouTube on the Creative Decision-Making Process for Fans -- SECTION FOUR: LEARNING FROM DIVERSE AUDIENCES -- Soaps for Tomorrow: Media Fans Making Online Drama from Celebrity Gossip -- Soap Opera Critics and Criticism: Industry and Audience in an Era of Transformation -- Hanging on by a Common Thread -- Perspective: Fan Site Moderator QueenEve on Fan Activity around and against Soaps -- The Role of "The Audience" in the Writing Process -- The "Missing Years": How Local Programming Ruptured Days of Our Lives in Australia -- As the World Turns' Luke and Noah and Fan Activism -- Constructing the Older Audience: Age and Aging in Soaps -- References -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z.